The last three years have resulted in a literal explosion of new techniques to examine responses of organisms to internal and external stimuli at the molecular level. This book outlines the use of techniques such as polymerase chain reaction assays or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays to measure single mRNA products or proteins diagnostics of exposure/effects of chemicals with well-defined modes or mechanisms of action. It explores exactly how data generated from new genomics technologies might actually impact/benefit the risk assessment process. A guide on how genomics research can impact regulatory decision making, the book also informs risk assessors on how genomics data may be used.

Fueled partially by large, well-publicized efforts such as the Human Genome Project, genomic research is a rapidly growing area in multiple biological disciplines, including toxicology. Much of this potential, however, has been discussed in the literature and at technical meetings only in relatively broad terms, making it difficult to assess exactly how data generated from new genomics technologies might actually impact or benefit the risk assessment process.

""Apartheid South Africa was on fire around me.""

So begins the memoir of Career Foreign Service Officer Edward J. Perkins, the first black United States ambassador to South Africa. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan gave him the unparalleled assignment: dismantle apartheid without violence.

As he fulfilled that assignment, Perkins was scourged by the American press, despised by the Afrikaner government, hissed at by white South African citizens, and initially boycotted by black South African revolutionaries, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu. His advice to President-elect George H. W. Bush helped modify American policy and hasten the release of Nelson Mandela and others from prison.

Perkins's up-by-your-bootstraps life took him from a cotton farm in segregated Louisiana to the white elite Foreign Service, where he became the first black officer to ascend to the top position of director general.

This is the story of how one man turned the page of history.